The Future of Law: What the new world looks like

The legal services landscape in the 2020s will look very different - attractive for some players, very difficult for others, says Dr George Beaton, panel chair and speaker at the forthcoming The Future of Law Summit in London.

A new world beckons Phloxii

Bundled and unbundled services will be offered by and bought in a variety of ways. A wide range of providers in addition to traditional law firms will leverage talent, efficient technologies and processes, and external capital to provide final or intermediate legal services.

Clients. Clients will have acquired very substantial expertise in legal process management. They will analyse and unbundle their legal needs, and procure services at the best price, if they have not outsourced their legal departments altogether. Corporate legal departments will be proficient in managing legal risk pro-actively through information technology, by embedding legal information and checklists in the software and processes used by their businesses.

Traditional law firms. Law firms will subject to much stronger competitive forces generated by each other and NewLaw providers. Most law firms have become smaller because other providers are now the preferred client choice for low-complexity work, and because technology has decreased the numbers of lawyers necessary for a given task. A small number, perhaps 10 or 20, prospering global law firms will have positioned themselves through high levels of specialized legal expertise, strong brands combined with highly efficient processes including extensive LPO usage, and services beyond individual advice.

NewLaw Firms. NewLaw firms will have substantially increased their market share by meeting the demand for competitively priced legal services, and will have further lifted the quality and complexity of their offerings.

MDPs. For mid-size businesses with relatively few legal needs or those do not wish to invest in legal departments, full-service corporations that provide integrated legal and other professional services will have mostly replaced traditional law firms.